Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

PUT ON MY GLASSES SO I CAN READ. WELCOME TO THE CITY OF PLANNING, CITY OF TAFT PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING FOR WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5TH, 2026. WE'RE MEETING IN THE CITY HALL COUNCIL CHAMBER AT 209 E STREET, EAST CURRENT STREET, TAFT, CALIFORNIA, 93268. CITY OF TAFT PLANNING COMMISSION MEETINGS ARE BEING HELD IN PERSON WITH FULL CAPACITY SEATING AND ARE LIVE STREAMED AT HTTPS, FORWARD, SLASH, FORWARD, SLASH, www.youtube.com forward slash user forward slash City of Taft. Public comment can be made in person and can also be received per the following. Written comments may be dropped off in the drop box at the front of City Hall. Comments may be emailed to the City Clerk at cityclerk at cityoftaft.org. They can be made by phone to the City Clerk's office at 661-763-1222. Public comments not made in person will be accepted up until one hour before the meeting, and any comments received will be read into the record. Okay, we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. If you'd stand for that, I'll lead, and then we'll be doing invocation. Hand over your heart, ready, pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

and justice for all.

And our invocation is being presented today by Pastor Bella Black.

Thank you. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to bring the TAF Planning Commission before you. I speak peace and wellness over their families and their homes. I ask for your guidance and wisdom. Be with each of them as they come together this evening. Give them patience and a spirit of cooperation as they work together effectively, guide their thoughts, and bless their work so that they may accomplish here, may bring glory for the city of Taft and the surrounding area. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you.

Okay. Ready for roll call?

Chairman Livingston?

Present.

Vice Chairman Schertz?

Present.

Commissioner Dowden?

Here.

Commissioner McDaniel?

Here.

Commissioner Black?

Yes. Thank you. Okay. So we will not be having any public comments because nobody signed up for them. That's taken care of. So we will now deal with public hearing. FOR A RESOLUTION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF TAFT APPROVING CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AND SITE PLAN REVIEW NUMBER 2026-04 TO CONSTRUCT A NEW 15,000 SQUARE FOOT CHURCH FACILITY LOCATED IN THE SOUTH SIDE OF KERN STREET WEST OF HILLARD STREET WITHIN THE INDUSTRIAL ZONE DISTRICT. APN'S 19833-03 AND-04. Well, let's go ahead and have our presentation from Luke.

Thank you, Chair Livingston, members of the Planning Commission. As you said, this is a conditional use permit and site plan review, number 2026-04, for a proposal for a new 15,000-square-foot church facility located on the south side of Kern Street, west of Hillard Street, in the industrial zone district. The applicant, Joey Pittman, on behalf of New Hope Church, proposed to construct a 15,000 square foot church facility with various site improvements, including but not limited to parking areas, landscaping, and off-site improvements. The proposed project site is currently vacant and is under ownership of the church. The applicant submitted plans in February of this year, and the project, as conditioned, was found to meet the development standards of the Industrial Zone District. The project was routed for comment to Kern County Fire, West Kern Water District, Taft Police Department, Taft Public Works, and the Taft Building Department. All received comments have been incorporated into the conditions of approval. Just an FYI, not all agencies commented. And we typically take that to mean they don't have any comments on the development. Um, for the industrial zone district, there are a minimum building side or minimum front side street and rear yard setbacks, um, all of zero feet. The application as proposed complies with those setbacks. Um, if you look at the site plan and exhibit, and I think it's exhibit a, um, yeah, it's set back pretty far. Um, so it meets the zero foot requirements there is a maximum building height requirement of 50 feet and as proposed the building is 24 feet 5 inches to the very top of the roof roof height there are special site development standards in the industrial zone district a lot of them have to do a screening so if if the project in the industrial zone district was adjacent to or could be seen by from a residential district screening standards apply the surrounding area is all zoned industrial or natural resources and therefore these require these screening requirements don't apply to the project and so therefore the project conforms to these requirements There's also a screening requirement for projects that are situated along a visual corridor as defined by either a precise plan or the general plan. This particular portion of Kern Street is not designated as a visual corridor in either the general plan or, and there's no precise plan for the area. So again, this screening requirement for this particular area for the, in this particular instance does not apply either. Um, parking, uh, there's a special site development standard for parking and industrial zone districts. Um, specifically for this, uh, use there's three parking requirements that apply. So one is places of worship require one space per 100 square feet of floor area, um, of the main assembly slash auditorium area. Plus the requirement for office space, if applicable. and the requirement for school uses if applicable. Um, and so the, uh, number, the number required for the assembly area is 60 because there's a 6,000 square, there's 6,000 square feet of assembly area proposed. There's, um, 733 square feet of office space. And so that requires two parking stalls. And then additionally, there's five classrooms. included in the proposed building. And there's a two space per classroom requirement, so that requires 10 stalls. Altogether, the code requires 72 total parking stalls, including ADA stalls. And this project proposes 90 parking stalls with four ADA stalls. And so therefore, the project complies with the parking requirement. As I mentioned previously, it's a 15,000 square foot church building. The building consists of a main sanctuary, two sets of restroom facilities, so four total restrooms, five classrooms, a kitchen space, two storage rooms, and three office spaces. Again, there's that 90 parking stalls proposed and various site improvements. The site would obtain utility service through the city and West Kern Water District, and there are readily available points of connection in Kern Street. There has not been a landscaping plan submitted for the entitlement. However, the project has been conditioned to submit a landscaping plan for city review and approval prior to issuance of building permit, and that landscape plan is required to comply with the MWELO calcs for drought tolerant and low intense water landscaping additionally Or similarly the lighting plan has not been submitted. However The project has been conditioned to submit a lighting plan for city review and approval prior to the issuance of building permit There's no signage proposed as part of this application the project has been conditioned if they if the applicant wants to install signage to submit a sign permit application for a separate review and approval process and And sign applications are typically reviewed and approved at staff level. So it wouldn't come back to this commission if the applicant wanted to install signage. Vehicular access to the site would be provided with one new point of ingress-egress through a new drive approach along Kern Street. Kern Street's currently designated as an arterial road in the general plan circulation element. Internal circulation is provided throughout the site with the parking lot and various pedestrian walkways. And then for public services, the project's located within city limits, so it would be served by Taft Police Department. And then additionally, the city contracts with Kern County Fire for fire services. So Kern County Fire would serve the project. The project was routed to those respective departments And all comments that we did receive have been incorporated in the conditions of approval. We did not receive any comments from the police department, but we did receive comments from Kern County Fire, and their comments have been both included in the conditions of approval as well as referenced as an exhibit in the conditions. Staff has found the project to be consistent with... Consistent and in compliance with the goals and policies that are outlined in the city's general plan there's a few policies that are outlined in the staff report as well as the consistency finding with those policies and Similarly for site plan review for a site plan review and conditional use permit there have to be findings for approval And staff has been able to make those findings. Those are outlined in your staff report. I don't want to drag on and on on the findings, but we have been able to make the findings and you can read those in the staff report. And then lastly, the project was found to be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA through a class 32 or an infill exemption. And none of the exceptions to the categorical exemptions apply to this project. And that concludes my brief presentation. I'm available for any questions. And we also have the applicant here as well.

Well, let's first, if any of you guys have any questions for Luke, and then we'll invite Mr. Pittman up, and then we'll open the public hearing. So anybody have any questions for Luke?

Yeah, on page 38, I think it is, there's a red box there that has, I don't know, about seven different questions. I don't know if they're concerns or things that need to be addressed. Are those things that have already been addressed or to be addressed?

No. So those are comments from the building department, building reviewer. We routed the project to them. These are essentially conditions that they will, when they apply for building permits, they have to address these items.

Okay. I'm curious. It's...

see what it says missing ev and bicycle parking information as new buildings are they required to have charging stations or just designated ev parking so it depends on the use and the number of stalls typically for ev stalls they have to be ev ready and there's a there's a calculation that the building code the state building code does And then for bicycle parking, that's also a building code requirement. It's just based on the number of stalls. I'm not sure off the top of my head if this project requires EV charging stations or if it's just EV-ready stalls. I believe it's just EV-ready stalls. But I can get you. I was just curious.

Do we have any other questions?

Flooding issues in, are you accessing the property off of Hilliard or?

Kern? So, yeah, access is proposed off of Kern Street, similarly to the industrial buildings to the west of. Just like them, okay. Yep.

It was hard to tell on a map, but I believe it's probably a quarter mile down from Hilliard, right? Yeah. It's down towards the end of the industrial buildings. Yeah, it's hard to. Yeah. Across from that road? Yeah. It's definitely going off.

It's a ways.

Yeah, it's a kind of a, you know, there's one frontage, so explaining the location in relation to streets was a little difficult. And Hillard was the, I think, next major street, so.

It was about it. You're right. There's a building right next to it. Elite Measurements is that little building to the west of it. Uh-huh.

It's a small industrial development right there.

Okay. Do we have any other questions from the Commission? Mr. Pittman, if you'd like to make any comments, you're free to do so, and then we'll be opening the public hearing for anybody else who wants to comment.

I'd just like to say that we are so excited just to get to this point. You know, probably most of you know our building had to be tore down in 2017. This kind of left us, you know, trying to do two services in a small area. But it's working out. So we're just really excited that we get to move forward, and we're going to make that end of town just look snazzy back there. So it's going to be good. So that's it.

Thank you. Good job. Okay, and I'm going to open up the public hearing. So if anybody else has any comments they'd like to make. You may come forward if not I'll give you a few seconds to decide and then we'll close the public hearing Okay, you're all good, okay, we're gonna close the public hearing then I'll entertain a motion.

I'll make the motion I Move to adopt a resolution entitled a resolution of the Planning Commission of the city of Taft approving conditional use permit for And site plan review number 2026-04 to construct a new 15,000 square foot church facility located on the south side of Kern Street west of Hilliard Street within the industrial zone district APN. 198-330-03 and-04 and find that the project is exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA as set forth in section 15332 of the CEQA guidelines. I so move.

I'll take a second. I'll second. Okay. We will need a vote, so can you call the roll?

Sure. Commissioner Dowden?

Yes.

Vice Chairman Church?

Yes.

Commissioner McDaniel? Yes. Commissioner Black? Yes. Chairman Livingston?

Yes. That passes on a 5-0 vote. Congratulations. Okay, now we're going to run on to the normal business, so you guys are welcome to leave if you want. We really appreciate you coming through. Congratulations. That's great. Congratulations. Look forward to seeing it. Okay. I kind of got ahead of myself. We're skipping item two because there are no citizens for public comment. So we're at number three, which are the minutes. So I'll entertain a motion for approval of the minutes.

I'll make the motion to approve the minutes for March 4th, 2026.

And I'll second.

Okay. It's been made. The motion has been made and seconded. Can we please have a roll call vote?

Commissioner Dowden?

Yes.

Vice Chairman Church?

Yes.

Commissioner McDaniel? Yes. Commissioner Black?

Yes.

Chairman Livingston?

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay. So on to item four, which is our planning director report. Luke, do you have anything else you need to talk to us about?

Not at this time.

Okay. Thank you. City attorney statements?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No statements.

So we're now at commissioner comments. Anybody have anything they need to tell the public? Welcome back. In that case, we'll move on to identification of a representative for the city council. That will be basically two weeks short one day from today.

What's the date?

Today's the 4th, so that would be the 18th? No, 17th. Oh, yeah. Well, no, today's the 5th. So 4th was yesterday, so it would be 18th.

So it would be August 18th. Tuesday?

Yeah. I can do it. Okay. Yeah. So then we will appoint Mr. McDaniel to be our representative at the council. And now all I need is a motion for adjournment. Motion. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay, passed on a 5-0 vote.

Wow, that was fast.